Saturday, December 15, 2007

These last days I have not felt sleepy at night. But this time the feeling was very different from the other times this happened. It wasn't the insomnia caused by some worry, that makes you want to sleep and forget, or maybe by some issue that makes you obsessed and not able to stop thinking about it… This was different. There was simply no sleepiness. My brain remained active, despite having slept very little… and I hardly cared about it. You could even say that I was in a good mood, I felt like doing things. It was strange.

I decided to make use of the time to do some more classwork. To the rhythm of the music in my earphones, and with an interesting lucidity uncharacteristic of that time, I continued until the screen of my watch showed I was reaching a limit that shouldn't be exceeded. I picked up my things and turned the light off. The light pollution from the city was enough to lit the way through the little courtyard. Completely dark, already in my room, I proceeded to prepare things for the next day, and when it was ready I made for the toilet.

But not without stopping to do a last thing —again in the courtyard, I looked up. With my pupils fully dilated, I knew that, like in other occasions, it would be worth it. And in fact it was. Over the orangey background that was the night sky, dozens of stars filled their positions in the firmament, dominated by the reddish glow of Mars, located directly over me in that moment. I gazed at it for a few instants, while threads of cloud travelled around and the cold of the night stroked my skin.

With a smile in my lips, I turned round and continued my way. What a pity it was so late…

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Debris ejected by the Sun from a comet that crossed our orbit years ago, being hit by the Earth in its trajectory around our star. The speed of the encounter with each one of these fragments is so high that the friction with our atmosphere that both the small rock and the air that surrounds it become incandescent, forming a bright trail until the extraterrestrial object is completely consumed. Since they reach the atmosphere until they are totally vaporized they can travel tens of kilometers, using for this only a fraction of a second.

From the ground you can contemplate a good sight, even in the course of several nights. Lying down on the sand of the beach, in almost complete darkness and with the murmur of the waves in the background, I could see more than twenty of these fireballs, radiating from the constellation of Perseus that gives the name to the meteor shower. The brightness and duration of some of them stood out of the rest, even crossing from side to side constellations like Cygnus to then disappear.

Star dust falling towards us. Remains from the formation of the solar system that after billions of years in space become part of our planet, continuing with the process. A process that seems to have ended eons ago, but is still active —the formation of the Earth itself.

And to see it the only thing you need is to look at the sky, and wait…